CCA Administration
Clan Crawford Association – Digital Media Like many modern organisations, the Association is by its nature a collective of members from multiple geographical locations around the world. Digital communications allow the Association to function and carry out its purpose, as described in Article III of the Association’s Bylaws (The Bylaws); a copy can be downloaded below. It is highly desirable that all members, Executive Committee, Board members and volunteers of the Association collaboratively adhere to guidelines for digital communications. It is useful to to be very mindful that our Crawford origins lie in a rich history that saw our family scatter to all corners of the globe. Outside of the members forum that exists on this site, Members of the Association have created Facebook forums to enable all Crawfords, whether they be members of the Association or not, a place to come and collaborate either socially, or at a level of specific research. The Clan Crawford Association itself does not support CCA Facebook pages except with submission of posts that relate to the allowed content on these pages. CCA is not an admin official for independent Facebook pages and does not control what can or cannot be posted. We do, however support the goals and purpose of the Facebook pages and encourage all Crawford family members to contribute postings within the rules of each Facebook forum.
Due to susceptibility to the misuse of posted e-mail addresses in scams, we have decided to remove actual e-mail addresses from the lists of Clan Crawford Association officers and regional representatives. Instead, please write the person you are intersted in reaching addressing them by name or position and sending the e-mail to info@clancrawfordassoc.org. Your message will be forwarded to the indicated person. You should receive an answer within 24 to 48 hours. This is a temporary measure, with a more secure and direct system to follow within the foreseeable future.
Clan Crawford Association – Structure The Clan Crawford Association was incorporated 20 JUN 2006 in the United States and is also legally registered under the name The House of Crawford. The Executive and Board of Directors approved the governing By-Laws (Amended 15 DECEMBER 2015) by way of a Special Meeting of the Clan Crawford Association Board Saturday January 9th, 2016. The Executive Committee was first elected 21st NOV, 2006. Current officers are as follows:
CCA ExCom – As elected 2022
| Acting President: | Raymond Crawfurd |
| President Elect: | Brian Crawford |
| Chair of the Board: | Kevin Crawford |
| Vice President | Dave Nicolson |
| Vice President | Abre Crawford |
| Treasurer | Fred Crawford |
| Secretary | Don L Crawford III |
CCA Regional Officers and Adhoc Members
| Regions | Directors | Alternates |
| Austral-Asia | Julian Crawford | Peter Burgess |
| Africa | Casey Crafford | Roger Crawford |
| California and Latin America | Jay Crawford | Scott Crawford |
| Canada | Ryan Crawford | |
| British Isles and Europe | Alexander Crawford | |
| US Pacific | Bruce Crawford | Terry Pea |
| US Mountain | Nikki Schuller | Chris Crawford |
| US Midwest | Jeffrey Metzler | Syd Crawford-Reyes |
| US South Central | Edward Crawford | |
| US Northeast | Christina C. Oppenheimer | Stephen Crawford |
| US Southeast | Caryn Crawford | |
| Sweden’s Crafoord Family Society | Christoffer Crafoord | Camilla Crafoord |
| Adhoc Members | ||
| IT Strategy and team | Julian Crawford – Web Architect Peter Crawford – Website Strategy | Warren Crawford |
| Kevin Evans | ||
| Heraldry | Allen Crawford |
Executive Committee Bio’s
Raymond Crawford: Acting President
I was born in Calcutta in 1942. As my father worked for most of his life in India, I was sent home to England to a boarding school, as was very common then as there were so many British families working overseas. Many school holidays were spent with my aunt and uncle in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, my first experience of the country and my Scottish heritage. I am a doctor by profession. My medical schools were Oxford and King’s College Hospital Medical School in London. I spent my professional life as a GP (family practitioner) in rural England. I have been retired for twenty years. After I retired I went to work in Nepal for 18 months under the auspices of the International Nepal Fellowship, treating mainly leprosy and tuberculosis which are both common out there. My immediate family are my late brother Julian who used to live and work in Zimbabwe, and then returned home to live near Stirling but who died two years ago, and Charles who was a wine merchant and has also just retired. I have two grown-up children – Kate, a professional artist and formerly a marine biologist working in Plymouth, England, and a son James, a medical Consultant in Accident and Emergency in Great Yarmouth. My interest in the Crawfords and in particular in Crawford heraldry has continued intermittently over the years; I was collecting information piecemeal until I felt the need to put it into some sort of order. Shortly after doing this I came into contact with Kevan and Joanne Crawford, and through the Clan Association website I was, with Kevan’s editing and excellent artwork, able to put on line a reasonably full account of Crawford heraldry from a number of sources. The artwork has now been updated and edited by Allen Crawford. My own branch of the family is descended from the Craufurds of Ardmillan on the Ayrshire coast. Our branch left Scotland and settled in Sussex where we flourished, but we have never forgotten our Scottish roots. My position as Acting President is to cover until Brian Crawford takes over next year.
President Elect: Brian Crawford
: I was born in Portland, Oregon in 1956, the last of 4 children and a borderline baby-boomer. Growing up in the northwest, Asia and New York, I started in the travel agency business when I was 15. After 6 years of undergraduate work in Florida in International Relations and Political Science, with an emphasis in Latin American studies, and continuing involvement in the travel industry, I left for the South Pacific and a position as Sales and Training Manager for Air Niugini. After three years in the jungles of Papua-New Guinea I was hired by Air Botswana as their Commercial Director. I brought computers and international marketing techniques to this small national carrier in Southern Africa. Now recognized as a specialist in developing nation airlines, I was hired by the International Air Transport Association in Geneva as Manager of Industry Automation. I specialized in working with groups of member airlines on noncompetitive projects.
In 1988 I met my then future wife in Switzerland. Elizabeth is Dutch and Indonesian and grew up in Europe, New York and Colorado. Together we decided it was time to make some changes in our respective lives. I finished my contract with I. A. T. A., Elizabeth left her work in New York City as an importer of European fashion lines, and we set off around the world for a year’s sojourn with Hawaii as the final destination. Hawaii was chosen because of my desire to earn a dual degree in Law and Travel Industry management from the University of Hawaii. We settled in Volcano Village just outside the national park on the Big Island of Hawaii and began with a two bedroom “B&B” that was called Chalet Kilauea. I applied to and started to attend U. H. Manoa. I received my JD and MPS degrees in 1994 and decided that entrepreneurship was where I really wanted to focus.
In 2010 I accepted a position with the State Department of the United States as a Diplomatic Courier. Postings to Frankfurt, Washington, Dakar and Bangkok followed over the next eleven years. I handled classified material destined to United States consulates and embassies around the world. That chapter concluded in November of 2021 when I reached the mandatory retirement age of 65.
Our family began to grow in 1995 when Clarissa was born. Twins Randall and Winston came along in 1996. Clarissa graduated from the Frankfurt International School and received her BA from Erasmus University in Rotterdam and a Masters in Human Rights from the University of Vienna. Winston graduated from Colorado State University in Finance and is working in Denver. Randall is in his second year of a BS in Aeronautical Engineering in Delft.
Vice President: Dave Nicolson
I was born in Washington DC in the mid-1960s, the 3rd of three children to a botanist father and a horticulturalist mother, as they settled down in the area; I was raised in the area and have spent most of my days here since then, and I now reside in the area with my wife and three children. I received a BA in Philosophy and Religious Studies and a BS in Biology from George Mason University, and an MS in Biology from the University of Miami. For the last 24 years, I have worked for the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS, an interagency & intergovernmental partnership to catalog and classify the names of living organisms of the world in a single public/free database), leading a team focused on adding and updating the content.
I am the newest of several family genealogists, including both parents and my maternal grandfather, Archie Stuart Crawford, and for the last decade I have been the primary genealogist for my extended family. My Crawford ancestors spent several generations (starting in 1855) working as Protestant missionaries and educators in the Damascus / Beirut areas of the Middle East. My grandfather, Archie, eschewed the missionary work, and spent his career working to strengthen what became the American University of Beirut, in addition to working for the Office of Strategic Studies (OSS) in Cairo during WWII. Prior to the 1850s, my Crawfords lived in Washington County, New York, having come there around the time of the Revolution from what was then called “Little Britain” (near New Windsor, NY), where they had first settled. We are still trying to find out when and how they came to Little Britain, and from where, but Y-DNA has provided a number of leads. In 2013, I began experimenting with genetic testing for genealogical purposes, and since then I have used tests from all the major vendors, with most focused on AncestryDNA and/or Family Tree DNA. At Family Tree DNA, I have recruited numerous relatives to join my own extended family project. For the last several years I have been focusing on my maternal (Crawford) side, and I’ve been using all available FTDNA tests to explore that line. My exploration of SNP testing (thanks mainly to the Big Y test) on my Crawford line made me a natural fit for a new phase of analysis in the Crawford project, starting when I joined the CCA in 2016, and I have been administrator of the Crawford Y-DNA Project since then (with Bruce Crawford until 2018, when he stepped back to make time for some other interests). My Crawford line is in lineage I1-02 in the Crawford Y-DNA Project.
Vice President: Abre (J.A.) Crafford
I was born in 1955 and raised in Pretoria, South Africa by two Afrikaners who refused to follow in the tradition of remaining on the farm, rather choosing the “big” city to study after being raised in rural farm schools. My parents were both from protestant refugee stock, my dad from Scots ancestors (according to him Dutch) and my mom from the French Huguenot emigration. I have 3 brothers, scattered in SA with one working in Texas.
My dad was a Chartered Accountant. He started the game of Softball in SA and became a well-known sports administrator, acting as national representative on the Softball International and Olympic Games committees. He travelled extensively to attend sports Conventions and international competitions. My nature loving mom spent 60 years studying Japanese pottery and flower installations and like my dad travelled a lot, mostly with regular visits to Japan to improve her skills attending residencies at pottery master’s studios in rural Japan. She was an honoured guest at cultural events at the Japanese embassy and was honoured by the Emperor of Japan with the Order of the Rising Sun for her long-term commitment to spread awareness of Japanese culture. She spent her last few years teaching as one of a handful of Grand Masters in the art of Ikebana.
I studied architecture at the University of Pretoria and was in practice for 40 years of which the last 25 were designing ecotourism facilities in some of the most beautiful environments in Africa, Reunion, India and the Arabian Peninsula. For the last 6 years I “retired” into teaching at two of our local universities and I still lecture part time – mostly on design and construction as a single skillset that requires sound understanding of materials and context to be effective as a designer.
I have been married for 35 years to an artist and photographer who publishes her own handmade books on artists and art and we built our own house on a steep hill in the then rural outskirts of Pretoria East. Our adult artist daughter decided to join us when she got married so we are all living within shouting distance on our steep, stony little “koppie”.
I am a fully committed “greenie” who has spoken at international sustainability conferences on our work to ensure responsible ecotourism in the often-marginalised rural areas where nature reserves exist, far from the facilities and services common to cities and the tourism industry, the only way to improve their lives being participant in tourism and subsistence farming. I have been interested in genealogy since the late1990’s after the passing of my dad who was convinced Crafford was Dutch due to our “Stam Vader” arriving from Utrecht in 1735. My involvement with the CCA started in the at the turn of the century in a still unsuccessful attempt to trace back my ancestry from Utrecht back to Scotland. Through my DNA results my closest genetic links so far, are Switzerland and Sweden and I am a lifelong member of the Association.
Treasurer: Frederick H. Crawford
A Scots/Irish descendant, living in Minnesota, U.S.A. I was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in December 1939. My family moved from Waynesboro, Virginia, to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Culver City, California and to Lima, Ohio. I have a brother born in California and a sister born in Ohio. I have 2 daughters (twins), 2 sons and 7 grandchildren. Both sides of my family have been in this land since before the American Revolutionary War. My mother and father were the first in their families to move away from Virginia. After my schooling at the age of 23, I joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a Crypto Intercept Analyst with a Top Secret Codeword Clearance. My longest tour of duty was serving for 2-1/2 years at RAF Kirknewton, Scotland, with the U.S.A.F. Security Service. In 2013 our military group had a reunion in Edinburgh and visited the old base. I was asked to make a presentation on our mission while stationed there to members of the RAF. After my military service, I worked for Rockwell International in manufacturing. After Rockwell, I started my own manufacturing companies, first making municipal pipe line cleaning equipment then making solar powered water pumps, all sold to customers in various parts of the world as well as municipalities in the United States. Although I should be fully retired, I currently serve as the Deputy Director, of the Armed Forces Service Center at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. We help the traveling military in, through and out of the twin cities airport, and the rewards of giving to those that serve our country, make it hard to quit. I enjoy golf and fly-fishing. I love the outdoors, which led to my being a Boy Scout leader for 15 years. Both Carole and I were honored to receive our Districts Award of Merit and our Councils Silver Beaver Award. With over 33 years in manufacturing, I bring experience to the CCA in the fields of business, finance and 14 years in 501c3 operations. I have been a part of the Executive Committee since 2006 and I am extremely excited to be a part of a stronger Clan Crawford Association and having a relationship with the people who have worked so hard to getting our organization to a higher level that all Crawford’s can be proud. As the CCA Treasurer, I welcome your questions and concerns.
Secretary:
Don L Crawford III
Association Artifacts
The Association has an operable framework that describes the Associations purposes and Governance policies. Below (1st item) is the most recent version of the by-laws governing the functioning of the Clan Crawford Association. Below it follow the past minutes of the Board meetings by date. As a note, Board minutes are published once they are finalized and approved by the Board or the Executive Council. Until that time they are an internal document not authorized to be distributed to non-members of the Board.
Bylaws of the Clan Crawford Association